"Fred Ettish will get the opportunity to restore balance to his competitive mixed martial arts career 15 years, five months and four days after he set foot inside the Octagon at UFC 2.

The 53-year-old Ettish (0-1) will face a still unnamed opponent at a Cage Fighting Xtreme show on Aug. 15 at Bada Bings in Brainerd, Minn. Ettish’s longtime friend and current UFC welterweight Brock Larson runs the Minnesota-based promotion and will provide him with the chance most believe to be long overdue.

“I don’t know for sure who my opponent is yet,” Ettish said. “A few names have been put out, but they have changed back and forth a bit. I have a feeling the changes will continue until fight day -- probably not a known name opponent at this point.”

Ettish has not competed professionally in MMA since his ill-fated appearance at UFC 2 on March 11, 1994 at Mammoth Gardens in Denver. President Clinton was enjoying his second year in office, “Schindler’s List” and “Mrs. Doubtfire” were playing in theaters and Kurt Cobain still fronted Nirvana. Ettish walked into the cage on short notice against Johnny Rhodes, and his life was never the same.

Shortly after their fight began, Rhodes clipped Ettish with a pair of thudding right hands that sent him tumbling to the canvas. Blood flowed from his face, and Rhodes proved relentless with his follow-up barrage, his heavy blows forcing the prone Ettish to cover up in defense. Ettish submitted to a rear-naked choke soon after and became the subject of public ridicule in the MMA community for years. Now, he has returned to right his wrongs.

“I’ve wanted to do this ever since the UFC 2 ‘experience.’ There was always something that prevented me every time I made any serious moves to fight again, and usually it was with an eye to a bigger promotion,” Ettish said. “I know that at my I age I’m blessed to have such good health and fitness, but I also know this will not last forever.”

Ettish resides in Kansas City, Mo., where he runs a martial arts gym affiliated with the Miletich Fighting Systems camp. He has roughly 20 students under his wing at the Damaibushi Martial Arts academy, but the lure to compete again has proven strong.

“I have a lot of ghosts and demons that have not been put to rest, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way to do this is to get back in there and actually do my best and represent in a way I can be proud of,” Ettish said. “I guess I don’t want to die at 0-1.”

_________________________"In case you ever wondered what it's like to be knocked out, it's like waking up from a nightmare only to discover it wasn't a dream." -Forrest Griffin

After successfully completing a week - long, grueling certification program, Fred became a Blue Belt and Certified Level 2 Instructor in MFS. He now is the Lead Instructor for the MFS Affiliate School, located at 1201 Woods Chapel Rd., Blue Springs, MO.

Fred is responsible for...

MFS and Kids Karate

Jiu Jitsu will be taught by Steve Crawford, Jobe Duran and Leo Pla. Hopefully Mr Crawford is giving him some input as well as MFS.

"The Fetal Fighting Postion" that Fred used was taught to us by our instructor who learned it in the Special Forces....were there elements that weren't used? -yes. The same position was taught to the police for years in groundfighting classes by guys like Arthur Cohen and Rick Faye. Unfortuantley Fred was sacrificed on the internet altar by the all knowing "experts". Their real expertise in knowing how to set up websites, post video, etc. I don't think any of them have or ever will step into a ring. But that is one of the great things about the internet-you can be anything you want to be and say anything you want to say regardless of if it's real or not. The only requirements are a PC,internet connection and time. I will be there Saturday night rooting for him because that's what friends do-win or lose. If his critics truly knew him they would hope that some day they could be half the martial artist and man that he is. But sitting at a computer criticizing takes so much less effort, time and energy and it is SO much safer.

duanew, I respect your loyalty to a friend, and I have no doubt that the Fred Ettish that enters the cage this weekend will be hugely different to the one that entered, at very short notice, UFC 2.

With the best will in the world, however, I watched UFC 2 at the time it happened, and had no access to internet, nor any concept of what the 'WWW' was, and have to say that the 'feotal' position Mr Ettish took had zero to do with fighting, and everything to do with covering vital organs in the face of a beating. Nothing wrong with that, I advocate being able to do it most strongly, and it has saved me from hospital visits in the past.

I have never been to a seminar where Rick Faye introduced this as position from which to fight however, and I would suggest that Fred Ettish will not use it again in this visit to the octagon. Not because it is an innefective fighting strategy, but rather because he will be better prepared, and not feel he needs to resort to protecting his safety in such a drastic way.

I think he had cojones to get up out of the crowd and enter a bare knuckle fight without so much as a warm up, and I think he has cojones for getting back in there in his middle age, and i am sure that he has trained to ensure his fighting ability now matches his courage.

I was referring to the ground fighting position with him on his side, one hand up protecting his head and using his legs to scissor or kick. If you trained with Rick 10-15 years ago in his ground fighting classes you would have learned that position. I don't know what he is teaching now days. I will be seeing him in Sept. for a ground fighting class so I will get updated. The position of covering you're head with both hands and rolling away from the incoming blows obviously isn't what I was talking about. Although we have seen it demonstrated on numerous other occassions-Gracies last UFC fight,comes to mind. Hope that clarifies.

"Over 15 years removed from his first and only MMA fight, 53-year-old Fred Ettish returns to the cage this Saturday with redemption on his mind.

Ettish, of course, is probably most remembered for reasons he would rather forget. His loss at UFC 2 in March 1994 for many was a clear example of how karate on its own could prove ineffective in a more realistic fighting situation.

Further, a position he utilized in the fight where he curled to his side for protection, became an internet in-joke and spawned websites in dedication of what is jokingly referred to as "Fred Ettish's Fetal Fighting Technique."

In this exclusive interview with FanHouse, Ettish talks about his desire to properly showcase his martial arts training to the best of his ability the way he would have wanted in 1994 and to finally put the UFC 2 performance to rest.

Why did you decide to return?

There's a lot of unsettledness within me that's been there every since UFC 2, and I've tried stuffing it down. I've tried working through it, I've tried a number of things to deal with the unsettledness of how I feel from what happened at UFC 2 and I haven't been successful putting it away so I came to the conclusion there's only one way to put that stuff to rest and that is to go out and actually perform up to my capabilities which I did not do the first time at all.

Are you unsettled about the loss itself or the ridicule that followed?

Neither. Everybody loses at some point. I happened to lose in my first and so far only fight. Losing is something we all have to deal with throughout our lives in any number of different ways. The manner in which I lost, the manner in which I perform -- failed to perform -- is what bothers me the most. At this point in my life what other people are saying about me, what other people's opinions are: the jokes, the ridicule, that kind of thing, doesn't really make any difference to me anymore. Sure it irritates me a little bit but that is not what drives me. I'm not driven to prove anything to anybody. I'm not driven to try and shut anybody up. People are going to say what they are going to say, they are going to have their opinions.

Were you surprised at how a single three-minute UFC fight became such a big running joke?

I became painfully aware of all that. I said it didn't [censored] me off cause it did. I was very angry about it. I reacted to it, and the reactions never really brought anything to a closure. The websites stayed up, it moved around from one server to another. I tried to get people to come forward themselves and confront me personally. They didn't do that. That seemed to add fuel to the fire and after so long of chasing it around, it just came to the point where, you know what? It's pointless. I'm making myself miserable. I have more to do in my life than worry about what some adolescent people are doing, whether they are adolescent chronologically or just between the ears and above the eyebrows. I mean if you don't have anything better to do with your life than to try and tear somebody else down and make fun of somebody else to make yourself feel better, then I think you have the issues, and it's only my issue if I let it become my issue.

Why the return now? And not five years ago, ten years ago...

I tried a few times to come back and it was kind of strange. Every time I tried to something always got in the way, and I'm at the point in my life now, like I said earlier, I'm blessed with really, really good health. I've got no right to feel as good as I do at my age. I've got no right to do the things I can do physically at my age, and I believe things happen for a reason. I'm blessed with the health and fitness that I have and the motivation I have to train every day, and I should do something with it while its still available to me. And I'm a realist, I know at 53 years of age, I don't have a huge window of opportunity, and I can see in a couple of days if I have any window at all. We're gonna go and find out. I know I can perform in the gym. How I'm going to perform in the cage? That remains to be seen. But stay tuned, we'll find out.

Were there any obstacles at your age in receiving a license from the Minnesota Athletic Commission?

(Chuckles.) Well, they asked me if I can get a note from my doctor, and so I got my doctor to write them a note, and I offered to get my mother to write a note too. We just stuck with the doctor. My health is phenomenal. I'm blessed and it's my choice to do something with it, or not. And I choose to do something with it.

He's got a show called Cage Fighting Xtreme (CFX) in a little town called Brainerd, Minnesota, and I've been there quite a few times before. Brock is one of my best friends and he knew that I wanted to fight, and he said "I can get you a fight on my show if you want." And I thought, why not? Go and do it for a friend of mine, someone who I know is decent human being. He's not going to screw me over, not going to set me up with a ringer. He's going to give me a reasonable fight. It's home. Minnesota is still home. I live in north Kansas City, Missouri. But I'm a Minnesota boy, I lived up here for longer than I lived anywhere else. I've got tons of attachments, friends, students, so it just seemed like the right thing to do and the right time to do it.

What do you know about your opponent Kyle Fletcher?

He's got an amateur record. He's got from what I understand some fights in some smaller pro shows that aren't recorded. I know he's younger than me. Other than that I don't know a whole lot about him. He's from what I understand a little shorter than I am. He's about 5'10ish, and he's right handed. Other than that I really don't know too much about him.

How different at 53 is your training regimen compared to someone like your opponent, who I'm guessing is in his 20s?

Yeah, I'm assuming he's in his 20s from the way it sounds. He's probably in the late 20s. My training regimen is pretty much the same as anybody else's cause I'm blessed with really good health, and I train everyday so it's not like I have to start training and worry about all the bumps and bruises and extra trauma from having not trained before. I'm in gym everyday, if I'm not in the gym, I'm out running, or doing any number of things on my own, so I'm in great shape and the things I do I take more care of than I did when I was younger is that I get more sleep. I make sure I get plenty of sleep. My nutrition I watch that real close, I eat real clean all the time. I don't eat junk. I try and make sure I stay hydrated. I try to tend to my injuries that I have. When I was young, I was like most younger people do, think they're indestructible and just push through things and don't go to doctors. Now I try and take better care of that.

Back then you were a traditional martial artist, how much of that is included in your training for this fight?

I still train traditional martial arts everyday. It's part of my training regimen and I've added a lot to that obviously. I've been working real hard with some real good wrestlers that are in my gym, a couple of phenomenal jiu-jitsu guys. I'm trying to be as well-rounded as I can. Conditioning is something that I do all the time. I worked with Pat Miletich quite a bit. I'm a Miletich Fighting Systems affiliate instructor and I take that very seriously. I needed to round up my game if I was going to be involved in the sport of MMA but that doesn't mean I left my traditional background behind. It goes with me wherever I go. I'm a traditional martial artist first and that's the way it will be until the day I die. I just happen to be a traditional martial artist who happens to also love the sport of mixed martial arts. I see a place for both things. I have my feet in both worlds and I hopefully am realistic in what I view as my strength and weaknesses of both worlds.

And if you can combine those worlds for a performance Saturday, there should be some peace for you away from all the years of "unsettledness" and bad press.

Yeah, well, there again. All that bad press. I could let it tear me down, destroy me and make me an angry bitter reclusive guy, or I can use it as fuel and use it as education. And for a while I was angry, bitter and reclusive. I didn't like being that way. So I decided many, many years ago to use it as fuel to make me a better human being. First of all, to make me a better martial artist, make me a better instructor, make me a better fighter and it helps keep me motivated. Sometimes I don't feel like going out and running the hills or doing that after a round of sparring or rolling that extra five-minute round, but I know I got that inside of me. I got that motivation to push [myself] extra because I remember what it felt like to fail greatly. That's fuel for me, I'm never going to fail greatly again. I'm always going to give my best, and that's what I intend to do Saturday night."

Best of luck to Fred.

_________________________"In case you ever wondered what it's like to be knocked out, it's like waking up from a nightmare only to discover it wasn't a dream." -Forrest Griffin